


Ensnared

by TheCarmineWanker



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29347701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCarmineWanker/pseuds/TheCarmineWanker
Summary: Another one that's basically just Tangled: But Hector Instead, chock full of artistic liberty and major plot changes.
Relationships: Hector & Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Hector/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled)
Kudos: 3





	1. The Tower

Hector barrelled through the woods on the back of his rhino, accompanied by his bearcats, tracking down the thieving witch who’d stolen the scrolls from under his nose. It should have been impossible with him and his animals there to drive off anyone who dared approach the tree, but she’d managed to succeed. Now, the ancient scrolls containing information on the sundrop and moonstone were gone, stolen by a thief in the night.

The trail ended at a tall stone tower in the middle of a hidden clearing. Seeing there was no door, he hopped off the rhino and extended his wrist blades, which he then used to scale the tower. When he reached the top, he dropped in through the window, on guard, prepared to encounter the witch. Instead, he was met with a startled young woman with wide eyes and exceedingly long hair.

“Who are you?”

“Where’s the witch?”

Her brow furrowed.

“Witch? What are you talking about?”

“A witch stole something from me. My bearcats tracked her to here. Either you are her in disguise or you know her,” he snarled, invading her personal space and using his blade to tilt her chin up ever so slightly in an unmistakable threat. However, she looked more angry than scared.

“You’re a _thug_ just like Mother warned me about. But she was wrong- staying in the tower didn’t keep me safe.”

Hector was perplexed. This girl clearly wasn’t the witch and didn’t even know that she was living with one and, more than that, she made it sound like she had been in that tower her whole life.

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” He sheathed his blade. “And I’m not a _thug._ ”

“Then who are you?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“Hector. Who are you?”

“I’m Rapunzel,” she answered.

“Well, _Rapunzel,_ that mother you mentioned is a witch and she stole from me so, tell me, where is she?”

“She left for one of her trips this morning- she’ll be gone for days.”

He growled in frustration.

“Where is she?”

Rapunzel tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“I’ll help you get your scrolls if you help me with something.”

“And why would I agree to that?” he sneered.

“I know where she is and you don’t. If your bearcats tracked her here, that means you lost the trail, so unless you want a wild goose chase, you need me to tell you where she went. Also, what I’d ask of you would take less time than tracking her or waiting for her to return, so it wouldn’t even be a waste of time.”

He didn’t want to admit it, but she had a point. She was right about the trail going cold and he knew he’d have a rough time trying to find it again. Tracking her had already taken longer than it should have since she’d done such a good job of covering her tracks.

“And what would you want out of this?”

She took a deep breath.

“I want to leave my tower and go to see the floating lights that show up every year. I’ve never been outside this tower, so I’ll need someone to show me the way.”

Of _course_ the one thing she’d want was a multiple day journey to Corona and back. Even still, he knew the witch most likely had the scrolls with her and that tracking her again would probably take longer than a trip to Corona. That, and he just couldn’t bring himself to use force to get the information out of the girl, although he didn’t know why, since he normally had no objections to such things.

“Fine.”

She clapped her hands in delight, a broad smile on her face.

“Great, let’s go!”

Before he could react, she had grabbed him and, using her hair in a pulley system, lowered them from the tower. He was impressed by how strong her hair was. He hopped off when they were about five feet from the ground but then, when she was all the way down, she stopped with her bare foot inches from the ground.

“What?” he snapped.

“I just . . . don’t know what it’ll feel like and I’m kind of scared.”

“What, the grass?”

She nodded timidly.

“Oh for the love of- we don’t have time for this!”

He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, deciding that he didn’t care about how soft her body felt against him or how nice her hair smelled. No, all he cared about was that this girl was wasting time over something as stupid as grass.

“What are you-”

“You can have your existential crisis about _grass_ while we make progress. I don’t have time for you to sit here and try and figure out if you want to _touch the ground_ or not.”

He put her in front of him on the back of his rhino with her stupidly long hair bunched up in her arms and, ignoring her protests, took off. 


	2. The Tavern

Rapunzel pointed out, asked questions about, and commented on absolutely _everything._ Rocks, trees, water, clouds, leaves, and many other mundane things were sources of awe for the strange girl. She drank in everything around her with wide eyes full of wonder at how incredible everything was. After a few hours, sometime mid afternoon, they came across a small tavern. Hector would have gone right past it if Rapunzel hadn’t spoken up.

“Hey, can we stop there for a bit?”

He wanted to say no but then he remembered that she had never ridden before and had just spent multiple hours riding a rhinoceros, so he was sure she must be tired. Stopping for a bit now might mean that she wouldn’t completely run out of energy before the day was over.

“Fine.”

Inside, the tavern was full of what looked to be exactly the sort of people Rapunzel’s mother had classified as ‘thugs’ and warned her about. However, he noticed that she didn’t react to them the way she had to him, earlier in her tower. He couldn’t help but wonder if, somewhere during the time spent on his rhino together since they left the tower, she had decided that he wasn’t a threat and then stopped fearing intimidating strangers altogether.

Rapunzel was midway through a bowl of soup when they were interrupted by a sword being swung at Hector’s neck. He blocked it reflexively and whirled around to find Adira, a fellow member of the Brotherhood, attacking him with a steely glint in her eye.

“What are you doing, Adira?” he asked as she continued to attack him, ignoring Rapunzel’s protests. Around them, people had turned around at their tables to casually watch the fight.

“I should be asking you that,” she countered. “Why are you shirking your duties to go off gallivanting with some girl?”

He blocked a second blow that she aimed at him.

“Why are you ignoring yours to come here and attack me?”

She casually dodged his blade as he swung it at her.

“I was in the area. Don’t dodge the question, Hector.”

He sneered as he blocked another blow, but not well enough to keep Adira’s blade from cutting his arm.

Rapunzel took everyone off guard when, the next moment, she managed to restrain Hector’s assailant using her hair.

“That’s _enough!”_ she shouted. “I don’t care what problems you have with each other; they can just wait! He promised that he would be my guide and I promised that I’d help him with something in return so, until I’ve seen the lights and been brought safely back to my tower and then helped him get the scrolls my mother allegedly stole from him, I can’t let you hurt him!”

Hector wished she hadn’t mentioned the theft of the scrolls as Adira laughed, but, other than that, he was impressed by how she stood up to Adira. He hadn’t expected her to do anything so bold and couldn’t help but gain a bit of respect for her.

“Alright then, Blondie. I’ll leave this idiot alone until you’re done with him.”

Rapunzel smiled.

“Thank you,” she said as she released Adira from her hair. “But he’s not an idiot.”

Adira just laughed, waving over her shoulder as she left.

“Come on.”

She looked confused as Hector grabbed her hand and started pulling her back towards the door.

“What? Why? I mean, we just got here.”

“Yes, and so did Adira.” He rolled his eyes. “We’re in a bar, surrounded by thugs, just like your mother warned you about, and I don’t feel like waiting to see who else wants to come pick a fight.”

He dragged her out the door and put her back on the rhino.

“I’m sorry. You’re right and I should have been more considerate of you.”

He snorted derisively as they took off.

“I can handle anyone who comes at me but you can’t and I can’t let you jump into fights, throwing your hair around, because you’ll get yourself killed.”

She smiled.

“Thank you for your concern, Hector.”

He shook his head in disbelief. It was baffling to him how this girl could thank him for basically calling her a helpless, reckless idiot. He’d never admit it, but the strange girl with her ridiculous hair was starting to grow on him.


	3. The Hair

A few hours later, when it was starting to get dark, they stopped in a clearing where they would camp for the night. The word ‘camp’ was used loosely seeing as neither of them had any sort of bedding and, with it being the middle of summer, there was no need for a fire, since Hector only ever brought food with him that didn’t need to be cooked. When he went to dismount, she stopped him by gently grabbing the arm that Adira had injured.

“Wait, you’re hurt. Let me see.”

She turned around where she was seated so that she was sitting backwards on the rhino, facing him.

“Right, because I’m sure with all those years locked in a tower you had to get really good at treating cuts,” he quipped sarcastically.

Rapunzel rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything as she wrapped her hair around his cut. Before he could ask what she was doing, though, she began to sing.

_Flower, gleam and glow,_

_Let your power shine,_

_Make the clock reverse,_

_Bring back what once was mine_

Her hair was glowing and had turned the color of molten gold where it had merely been blonde before. This wasn’t the most interesting part, however. He recognized the words of the song she sang as being one of the incantations that was on the most important of the scrolls that had just been stolen. Her use of the incantation, combined with the effect it had, unfortunately provided Hector with irrefutable proof both that the sundrop actually existed- something he had long denied even though obtaining it was part of his duties as a member of the Brotherhood- and that it was somehow inside of Rapunzel.

While, based on the part where it would make it easier to bring the sundrop back to the Dark Kingdom, this could be considered a good thing for him, it wasn’t. If Adira found out, she wouldn’t hesitate to drag Rapunzel back to the Dark Kingdom, not caring if using the sundrop to neutralize the moonstone killed the girl, and that would all put Hector back at square one. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself, pretending that the subconscious part of him that simply cared about her life didn’t exist.

Rapunzel looked at him nervously as she released his arm from her hair. She watched, nibbling her lip, as he examined the area where his arm had been cut but, now, there was brand new skin.

“When did you learn that song?”

“My mother has been singing it to me since I was a baby.”

“Do you know any other songs like that?”

She shook her head.

“No.”

So the witch hadn’t deciphered the fourth, untranslated incantation that appeared to also go with the sundrop. That supported his hunch that she would be trying to find a way to seize the power of the moonstone for herself without killing her rather than trying to do more with the sundrop that was stuck inside of someone else. Her trip probably was to dig up more information about the moonstone and figure out how to take it.

“Does your hair do anything else?”

She nodded.

“It’s indestructible, it can’t be cut.”

“Hmm, interesting.”

With that, he slid down off of the rhino’s back.

“No other questions?”

“None that you can answer.”

She followed his lead and dismounted, landing next to him.

“Wait, you think this has something to do with Mother, don’t you?”

“Your hair is magic and so are the scrolls,” he said with a shrug, not caring if she knew he was hiding the truth from her.

“Oh, okay.”

“All this talk about your hair reminds me- you really should tie it up.” He could see how it was starting to pick up stuff like moss and leaves from the forest floor.

“I’ve never done that before. Would you help?”

As much as he didn’t quite feel like braiding the girl’s mile-long hair, he didn’t exactly have anything else to do.

“Fine.”

Her face lit up at his consent.

“Sit,” he ordered. She did as told and, as he began to braid her hair, Rapunzel asked a burning question.

“Who was that woman at the tavern earlier?”

He tensed.

“Adira.”

“Yeah, but who is she? How do you know her?”

He debated how to answer.

“She’s someone I work with.”

“Is that why she has the same pin thing you do?”

So she’d noticed the brass sigils they wore.

“Yes.”

“What is it you guys do? She said something about your ‘duties’.”

“We’re supposed to . . . defend something on orders from our king.”

“Is it the scrolls?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“That’s part of it.” He scowled at her hair as he thought of the theft and what he’d left behind to go find the scroll. 

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Ten years.”

“Wait, how old are you?”

“Twenty seven.”

Rapunzel was shocked.

“You were only seventeen when you started? Isn’t that a bit young?”

“Since he’d been training me for years, I was good enough to take my father’s place when he died.”

Rapunzel frowned.

“That still doesn’t seem right.”

He rolled his eyes.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of things that are completely normal but you’ll have a problem with anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked defensively.

“That you’re ridiculously sheltered and probably grew up with fairy tales and your mother’s scary stories as the only knowledge you have of the world.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m wrong!” she firmly protested. “Teaching children how to fight isn’t right and something being normal doesn’t make it right, either.”

He snorted derisively.

“Seventeen isn’t a child.”

“Maybe not but you said he’d been training you. It must have taken years for you to get as good as him, so he had to have been training you since you really were a child.”

He shook his head disapprovingly.

“Let me ask you something: if teaching kids to fight is what keeps them alive, how is it wrong?”

“It’s wrong for a society to get to the point where that’s necessary, and just because it’s necessary doesn’t mean it’s right,” she replied, without hesitation.

He admired how she so completely stood with her ideals. Her stubbornness reminded him of himself, actually. As he pondered the girl in front of him, they lapsed into silence until he finished with her hair.

“Done.”

She got up and twirled with a big smile on her face, admiring his handiwork.

“I love it!”

Something about being praised with such genuine enthusiasm for the first time made Hector feel something unfamiliar. To his surprise, he found himself fighting back a smile.

“Good.”


	4. The Sundrop

The next day, they made it to Corona by noon or, rather, the house just outside of Corona where the third member of the Brotherhood lived.

“Hector, good to see you,” Quirin greeted when they arrived. “And who’s this?”

“Hi, I’m Rapunzel.” She shook his hand with a bright smile on her face.

“Rapunzel, this is Quirin.”

“So do you work together like you do with Adira?” she asked Hector.

Quirin raised his eyebrows, clearly wanting to know why Hector would have come there with a girl who didn’t even know about the Brotherhood.

“Yes,” he answered through gritted teeth.

“So does that mean we’re here about the-”

Thankfully, she was cut off by Quirin’s son coming out from the cellar.

“Dad, who’s here?” the boy asked, approaching them.

“This is Hector, an old friend of mine you met a long time ago, and Rapunzel, a friend of his.”

Hector stiffened at Rapunzel being labeled as his friend.

“Oh, cool. I’m Varian, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Hey, Quirin, as much as it’s nice to see your kid again and everything, I need to talk to you,” Hector interjected. “Now.”

“Hector, don’t be-”

“It’s alright,” Quirin cut off Rapunzel with a laugh. “He’s always like this.” He turned to address his son. “Varian, why don’t you show Rapunzel what you’re working on?”

His face and Rapunzel’s lit up in twin excitement and they scurried off to the cellar.

Quirin led Hector inside.

“Now, what did you want to talk about?”

“She’s the sundrop. I don’t know how, but it got inside her somehow. She has indestructible hair that glows and can heal wounds when she sings the incantation from Demanitus’ scroll. It has to be the sundrop.”

Quirin’s expression was grave.

“Hector, if the sundrop’s inside of her, that means she’s the lost princess.”

“What?”

“Twenty years ago, the queen got sick while she was pregnant and the king’s guards managed to find the sundrop and used it to heal her. It worked and she gave birth to a daughter, but the princess was kidnapped the same day she was born. That’s why, every year, they release lanterns on her birthday.”

Hector cursed.

“Just my luck the girl I’m working with is a long lost princess. Now she really can’t be brought back to deal with the moonstone.”

Quirin raised a skeptical eyebrow at him.

“All you have to do is take her there and deal with it before anyone finds out she’s the princess.”

Hector had considered that but he didn’t like it. It irritated him to no end that this girl had him acting so unlike himself, especially since he didn’t even know why that was the case.

“There has to be a way to remove the sundrop without killing her, that’s all.”

A grin spread across Quirin’s face.

“You like her,” he declared, earning a scowl from Hector.

“I do _not._ ”

“Then why are you here?”

“A witch stole some of the scrolls from me. I tracked her to a hidden tower where the trail went cold but she wasn’t there, Rapunzel was. We made a deal that I’d take her to see the lights for her birthday and she’d tell me where the witch went so I could get the scrolls back. We’re here because I thought you’d let us stay long enough for her to see the stupid lights before we leave but, since we’re here, I thought you’d want to know what’s going on in case Adira shows up.”

It was convenient that Quirin’s house was actually perfectly situated for seeing the lights. The lanterns were always launched on the water’s edge of Corona and most of them either headed right toward his house or passed in front of it, parallel to the water’s edge.

“Why didn’t you force her to tell you? That’s what you’ve always done. I think the only reason you didn’t is that you like her and that there’s no other way to explain it.”

The way Quirin was pushing this made Hector defensive.

“I _don’t_ like her!” he snapped.

Just then, the door behind him opened, revealing Rapunzel and Varian who were frozen in the doorway. Of all the timing they could have had, this was the worst.

“Er, sorry, I’ll just . . .” Rapunzel trailed off, her lip quivering a bit as she fled the room.

Cursing, Hector went after her. Outside, she was heading toward the pumpkin patch.

“Rapunzel!”

She stopped and turned to face him, eyes wide.

“We need to talk.”

Without waiting for a response, he grabbed his hand and dragged her toward the back of the pumpkin patch, closer to the woods.

“How much did you overhear?”

“Something about the sun and then . . . the last part.”

“You’re the sundrop,” he explained. “Quirin, Adira, and I are under orders to bring the sundrop back to Edmund, if we find it, to neutralize the moonstone. It _was_ a flower, but now that it’s inside you, that changes things since bringing you to the moonstone would probably kill you. Adira won’t care but I do.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion.

“You said you don’t like me so why-?”

“He was pushing me and questioning my ability to do my job and I snapped and you had awful timing. I don’t actually hate you.”

“Really?” Her face lit up.

He nodded.

A broad smile spread across her face and then she surprised him by throwing her arms around him, embracing him as though he’d just said something far better and more eloquent than what he actually did.

“I like you, too. And thank you for helping me.”

Something about her and the things she said and did made him feel weird in a way he was completely unfamiliar with and decidedly didn’t like.

“Whatever you say.”


	5. The Lanterns

At nightfall, they went up to the roof to see the lights. It ended up just being Rapunzel and Hector since Varian was embroiled in some alchemy project and Quirin was busy with something else, though Hector suspected that his excuse was merely a ruse. When the lanterns began to float up into the night sky, Rapunzel gazed at them with eyes full of wonder. The expression on her lovely face made Hector feel weird, unfamiliar things that he didn’t like and that were starting to become more familiar the more time he spent with her. He broke the silence to distract himself from them.

“Quirin thinks you’re the lost princess.”

Her eyes widened in surprise as she turned to face him.

“What?”

“About twenty years ago, a flower he thinks was the sundrop was used to heal the queen while she was pregnant with the princess. The princess was kidnapped on the day of her birth.”

There was a tense pause before she spoke.

“Why are you saying this?”

“Right now, don’t think about it too hard and just know Quirin told me earlier that the lanterns are for the princess’ birthday every year and, if that’s you, then the lights you like so much are for you.”

Just like that, the tension melted and her whole posture and expression softened with fondness.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For bringing me to see the lights.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Don’t waste your breath thanking me for something as basic as that.”

She shook her head.

“It’s not a waste. Even if it’s basic for you, that doesn’t make what you’ve done for me less valuable or make me less grateful for you.”

He was _baffled_ by how she could be so candid and open with her feelings, playing with fire in such a kind, gentle way that would surely get her hurt and taken advantage of.

“How are you _like_ that?” he asked, frustration in his voice.

She turned to face him with her big, bright eyes.

“Like what?”

“So . . . open and _innocent_. It’s going to get you hurt or killed one of these days but it’s like you don’t care.”

She smiled at him.

“Thank you for caring about my safety.”

He growled and, quick as a flash, grabbed her wrists and pinned her down on the roof under him.

“Fight me off.”

He just about had it when her eyes met his and they were still full of unwavering trust.

“No.”

“No combat skills, unwavering confidence, and complete innocence are a _lethal_ combination. If someone else had you pinned like this, you wouldn’t be able to fight them off before they brutalized or killed you.”

She shook her head with a smile.

“Hector, choosing to be open with you doesn’t mean that I’d do that with everyone. I do it because I trust you. It isn’t something I do because I’ve never been around people but _in spite_ of how I’ve been raised. Mother only ever told me about the ways that the world is dangerous and frightening and only let me read stories like that so I wouldn’t want to leave and would be safe in my tower. Trusting you, or anyone, is something I do in spite of all the fear I’ve been taught to have since I was a baby, not because I have no experience. But, as long as you’re here, I feel safe and I know I don’t have to worry about anything. That’s all.”

“How can you _say_ that?” His grip tightened on her wrists but her smile didn’t falter.

“Because it’s true and because it’s you.”

Everything he’d been trying to ignore was coming together and crashing down on him all at once and he couldn’t take it. Suddenly, his mouth was on hers _and she was kissing him back._ Just like that, the lanterns were forgotten and nothing else mattered to him than the girl he had underneath him and the things she made him feel.


	6. The Morning After

As lovely as the evening had been, the next morning was not. They all were woken in the wee hours of the morning when Adira tried to sneak in and take Rapunzel but was attacked by Hector and Quirin as soon as she entered the house.

“Why are you stopping me? Have you forgotten that bringing back the sundrop is our duty?”

Hector dodged her blade and aimed a blow at her.

“Yeah, but we also thought it was a flower, not a person!”

Quirin nodded in agreement.

“Edmund wouldn’t want to risk her life like that.”

Adira raised a skeptical eyebrow as she dodged a blow he’d aimed at her.

“Then how do you intend to get the sundrop to the moonstone? By ripping it out of her?”

“Actually,” Rapunzel interjected, using her hair to stop the fight, just like she had at the tavern, “ I know my hair is indestructible, but you’re all so familiar with all of this stuff that I think, if anyone could find a way to cut it, it would be you, and I think that would be a good place to start.”

“Good point,” Adira commented before getting enough range of motion to use her strange sword to cut the hair that was restraining her, quickly followed by the rest of it.

Rapunzel gasped when, as it was cut, what looked like sunlight came trickling from her hair and, acting like mercury, gathered into a ball which then turned into a smooth stone. Unlike her, Adira had much less of a reaction to what had just happened and simply wrapped the stone in a piece of cloth and stuck it in her pocket.

“Well, that’s all I needed. Looks like you’ll get to keep your girlfriend.” Rapunzel flushed scarlet.

“She’s not-” Hector started to protest but Adira cut him off.

“I’ll tell Edmund you helped.” Then, she was gone.

“So, um, do you have scissors or something I can use to fix this?” Rapunzel asked, gesturing to her hair that had been cut messily at a bunch of different lengths.

“There should be some in the kitchen,” Quirin told her.

They apparently were in agreement that they weren’t going back to sleep, aside from Varian who’d managed to sleep through that, as she scurried off to cut her hair and Quirin turned to talk to Hector.

“Can I ask why you were going to deny that you two are together when Adira said something about it?” Quirin asked him.

“Because we’re _not._ ”

Quirin raised a skeptical eyebrow at him.

“You know you were on my roof last night, right? And that you weren’t exactly quiet?”

Hector rolled his eyes.

“We didn’t _do_ anything. Whatever you thought you heard was innocent.”

Quirin looked incredulous.

“Innocent? She has a bite mark on her neck, Hector.”

Hector hadn’t actually noticed that.

“So? It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Does she know that?”

“Probably.” He shrugged. 

Quirin shook his head in disapproval.

“Talk to her. You like her too much to just let her go like that.”

“I don-”

“Yes, you do. Hector, I’ve known you since you were a kid; you can’t fool me and you’re not that good at fooling yourself.” Quirin clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Talk to her.”

He sighed.

“Fine.”

. . .

Rapunzel beat him to it, actually, by pulling Hector aside later on, mid-morning.

“So, um, I wanted to ask you about last night, on the roof.”

He mentally prepared himself for what he was sure would come next.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said about me being the lost princess and I talked about it earlier with Quirin and I’m sure he’s right so, um, what now?” That definitely wasn’t what he’d expected her to ask about but he was glad it was since it was important. “I mean, how does this affect our deal and everything? You just agreed to take me here to see the lights but this is going to get way more complicated than that.”

“Let’s say that the deal’s off and everything I do from here is because I want to.”

She smiled at that.

“Alright, thank you.” Then, her smile fell. “There’s . . . something else I need to ask, while you’re here.”

“What?”

“What about . . . us? Or did none of that last night actually mean anything?”

He sighed.

“Look, I’m the first person you ever met other than the witch and it’s only been a couple days since you left that tower for the first time. You need freedom, not someone tying you down.”

“Oh.”

He hated how much it bothered him that she looked and sounded so dejected.

“How about if, five years from now, you still want . . . us, then you can let me know and we’ll figure it out.”

Her expression brightened a bit.

“Okay.”


	7. The Reunion

Hector could see how nervous Rapunzel was as they went to the castle with Quirin. She kept nibbling her lower lip and playing with the ends of her hair that she was still getting used to. She had done a good job with it- it fell below her shoulders and had been cut in a perfectly even line.

When they reached their destination, they found it to be surprisingly easy to get an audience with the king and queen. It might have had something to do with Quirin being friends with the king or it might have been because Rapunzel looked almost identical to the queen, as they discovered once they reached the audience chamber. The king and queen noticed that, as well, and the latter gasped when Rapunzel came into view. The only noticeable differences between the two women were that Rapunzel had freckles and the queen did not and that the queen looked older.

“Your Majesties, we have come to bring you the lost princess,” Quirin announced.

Propriety was cast aside as the queen dashed forward to embrace her daughter.

“Where did you find her?” asked the King, who approached them in a more dignified way but showed as much emotion in his face as his wife.

“In a hidden tower,” Hector answered. “I’ve been tasked with guarding the Great Tree and a witch stole some of the scrolls I guard there, so I tracked her. Her trail led me to the tower where she,” he gestured at Rapunzel, “was, but the witch was gone. She and I made a deal that she’d help me get the scrolls back in exchange for me taking her to see the lights for her twentieth birthday.”

“And how did you know she’s the princess?”

This time, Quirin answered.

“She had the sundrop inside her, your Majesty. More specifically, it was in her extremely long, magical hair that has since been cut for her safety. As you know, the sundrop was used to heal the queen, meaning that it ended up inside of the unborn princess. When her hair was cut, the sundrop trickled out of it and formed a stone that Adira has since taken to King Edmund of the Dark Kingdom to neutralize the moonstone. I can send for her, if you wish.”

The king shook his head.

“That won’t be necessary. I asked out of curiosity, not because I need proof. I’d know my daughter anywhere.”

Then, like the queen, he embraced their daughter while Hector marvelled at how easy that had been.

“I hate to interrupt, your Majesties, but the witch is still out there and is a threat as long as she’s free,” he pointed out.

The king’s face grew serious.

“You’re right. We need to send out a search party immediately.”

“I can lead it,” offered Hector. “I’ve tracked her before.”

“Good, I’ll send for my guard.”

“Wait.” Before he could do that, Rapunzel spoke up. “Don’t you want to know where she went?”

. . .

With the information they got from Rapunzel, Hector and the search party set out to track down the witch. They found her about a mile from the tower, coming right at them. She was apprehended swiftly and, luckily, the scrolls were on her, so Hector got them back right away. He took great satisfaction in leading her back to Corona. He could see that, the whole time, she hadn’t given up until they got to the castle and saw Rapunzel or, more specifically, her hair, when she was brought before the king.

_“What have you done, you rotten child!”_ she shrieked, thrashing against the guards who restrained her.

Rapunzel shrank back, into her mother’s side.

“Do _not_ address the princess like that, witch!” the king bellowed.

“So you finally figured it out, then? Where your precious princess went?”

“Why did you do it?” the king demanded, ignoring her taunts.

“You _made_ me,” she hissed. “That flower was _my_ fountain of youth until you went and took it! Then, my flower was in your child because you put it there! All I did was take what was mine because _you_ took what was mine!”

“Take her to the gallows! She is to be executed immediately!”

With that, the witch was dragged out of the room. When Rapunzel rushed off in the other direction, Hector followed. She stopped on a random balcony and was shaking as she tried to calm herself with deep breathing.

“What was that like?” Asking if she was okay seemed stupid, so he went with that instead.

“Horrible.” She shivered. “I knew she was a bad person but seeing her like that made it all so . . . real. She never was my mother and everything I knew my whole life was a lie. All I can think of is how much time I wasted trying to please that _monster_ and bending over backwards to earn her love that didn’t even exist.”

“Does it help to have your real mother now?”

She nodded.

“I think so. She’s really kind and loving and she’s been really supportive so far with all of this and my transition into the castle. She understands that this is all a lot for me and is okay with me taking it slow. I think that perspective really helps because, yes, I have my parents in my life now but there’s no pressure with them to act like I’ve always been here. I know they’ll give me the time and space I need to work through everything with Mo- er- the witch.”

“It’s good to know you’ll be taken care of here. I can’t keep an eye on you from my tree, so I’ll just have to trust them to do that.”

She frowned.

“I forgot you have to go back. I kind of thought that, with the moonstone taken care of, you wouldn’t have to.”

He shook his head. 

“It’s a tree with priceless artifacts in it that used to be controlled by a demon sorceress and the only thing keeping it stable is one spear; of course someone needs to guard it. But it’s not that far, just a few hours on horseback, and it’s on the way if you’re ever going to the Dark Kingdom.”

A smile crept onto her face.

“Is that a standing invitation to go visit you at your tree?”

“Maybe. Just because we agreed for you to wait five years before talking about certain things doesn’t mean you can’t talk to me at all until then.”

Her smile spread.

“Good, because I’m not sure I’d be able to keep our agreement otherwise.”

Such a simple statement had a strong impact on him.

“You always say such dangerous things, princess.”

“I told you, it’s just with y-”

“That’s not what I meant,” he interrupted. “I was wrong- it’s a weapon, not a weakness.”

Her big eyes were full of innocent confusion.

“What do you-”

He cut her off with a kiss.

“That’s what I mean,” he clarified, swiping a thumb across her lower lip before letting her go and stepping back. “I should get going. Feel free to drop by any time.”

Before she could respond, he was gone and she was alone with the lingering sensation of his lips on hers.


	8. Epilogue

On Rapunzel’s twenty fifth birthday, Hector watched the lanterns from the top of his tree. The royal family had continued that tradition since she loved the lights so much, even though Rapunzel had returned and there was no longer a need to mourn her loss or try and signal to her to come home. Watching the lights float through the night sky brought back memories, the same way it had for her past four birthdays, but this time it was different- tomorrow would mark five years since they’d made their agreement.

Since they parted ways, they had kept in touch. She would pop in every so often because she was passing by or because she’d gone out there on her own because she needed someone to rant to or because she just wanted to catch up. Apparently, her parents had decided that, after spending her whole life locked away in a tower, their daughter needed freedom most and, besides, she’d been kidnapped from her cradle, meaning that the castle wasn’t inherently safer than anywhere else, so they pretty much let her go wherever and whenever she wanted. In all those visits, though, the arrangement between him and the princess hadn’t come up since he kissed her that day almost five years prior. He wondered if she’d show up tomorrow or wait until later or leave it alone altogether. She’d never mentioned such a thing, but it was certainly possible for her to already be in a relationship.

For a while, he went back and forth in his mind as he watched the lights, trying to convince himself that he didn’t need her to come back to him, that it might be for the best if she didn’t and, besides, the palace stables wouldn’t be designed to accommodate a rhinoceros. Not to mention that, if things worked out, a long term relationship would eventually require him to leave the tree and go to Corona, which he didn’t want to do. However, deep inside, he knew he would do it for her if she asked nicely and he knew that, if the princess wished it, the castle would find a way to let him keep his animals. Trying and failing to convince himself to expect rejection, Hector gave up on watching the lanterns.

. . .

The next morning, his apprehensions melted away when, just at the break of dawn, she arrived at his tree, disheveled from riding so hard.

“I wanted to get here first thing because I’ve been waiting for so long and I couldn’t stand to wait a minute longer than I-”

He kissed her, cutting her off. As he did so, he realized why he had failed at resigning himself to disappointment- there was simply no way that something as perfect as that could not be meant to be.

“I was just as impatient.”

His admission made her blush.

“Then I’m glad I didn’t keep you waiting.”

For the first time in a while, he genuinely smiled.

“Me too.”

As she pulled him in for another kiss, he was full of confidence that this would work out, even if there were difficulties and compromises along the way.


End file.
